Enclosures are known in which a vertical panel is fixedly mounted within an enclosure spaced inwardly a selected distance from the opening along the front. A variety of devices such as fiber optic connectors may be mounted to the panel, commonly referred to as a patch panel, and access to the panel to connect cables thereto is permitted by a door mounted across the opening that may be lowered by pivoting about hinges along the door bottom at both ends whereby the door remains secured to the framework of the enclosure.
One such enclosure is disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/254,301 filed Jun. 6, 1994 and assigned to the assignee hereof. The enclosure provides a patch panel that is removably mounted to flanges extending into the interior of the enclosure at the spaced inward location. The manner of fastening the patch panel at the interior location is selected to match the manner of removably fastening the door to the enclosure at its front opening. The patch panel may be mounted at the front opening facilitating access to the cable connections to permit frequent changes in the desired connections, such as in test equipment where different apparatus desired to be tested may require different cable connections for each test to be performed thereon. Also disclosed are fasteners of the type easily actuated manually for fastening and unfastening without tools and wherein the fastener elements remain loosely secured to the patch panel eliminating the possibility of lost pieces during placement or removal of either the panel or the door.
It is desired to provide an enclosure compact in size and providing for interconnection of a large number of discrete optical fiber lines, in a high density arrangement, allowing convenient connection and disconnection capability.